New Immigration Deal 101

Friday Apr 19th, 2013 95 Views Fruit Grower Report

New Immigration Deal 101. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The Gang of Eight’s new immigration deal takes up over 800 pages and there is a lot in those pages that still is not understood very well. Washington Farm Labor Association’s Dan Fazio gives us a 101 read on the new deal.

FAZIO: The Senate bill is out – all 844 pages, looks like farm workers did really, really well and farmers in Washington and Oregon did pretty good for themselves. Overall we’re pleased. I don’t think this bill is going to be the bill that finally makes it across. I don’t know if this bill is going to be the one that even gets out of the Senate but let’s go through it if we can. First, farm workers get a special “blue card” that allows them immediate work authorization and a quick path to a green card or legal, permanent residence if they continue to work in agriculture for about half the year or so for the next several years –other undocumented people who are here in the country, you know the 11-million undocumented people that we hear about - they don’t get such a good deal and looks like they’ve got to pay about $1000 or more in fines and wait ten years or more and do other things. So we might see some squabbling over the fact that farm workers get that accelerated path to legal residence.